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Write for Us!

YOU are what makes Stay Teen cool, so don’t be shy about speaking out! We’re always looking for young people ages 13-19 to contribute articles, essays, and more to the site, so if you have a story to contribute, we’d love to see it—it can be on any topic as long as it relates to your life as a teenager. Just email us!

Before you get writing, here are a few minor guidelines for anyone who submits pieces:

Anything you send to us becomes the property of Stay Teen and The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy. That means we might use your stories or emails on the Stay Teen website or somewhere else (like in one of our publications, on our Facebook page, etc). Unless you ask to be anonymous, your name (first name, last initial) may be attached to anything you write for us.

Also, once it's on our website, we can't control who sees it or reposts it—that means that others might link to it, Tweet about it, post it on their Facebook pages, or generally publicize your work. Once it's on our site, that stuff is out of our control.

If we post your story, we might edit your words—that doesn’t mean we’ll change the meaning of your story. We’ll just clean up the grammar, fix any misspellings, and make sure the content flows and makes sense.

We’re not required to post your story or pay your for it. There’s also a chance that similar stories will be submitted to Stay Teen or that we’ll write similar content in the future even if we didn’t use yours.

If we post your story, we want you to help us publicize it—that means we hope you’ll share it, tell all your friends about it, and generally make sure everyone knows that you’re a published author. If you don’t use social media tools or don’t feel comfortable telling your friends, that’s ok too. We just want you to know that you’re allowed (and encouraged!) to.

Finally, keep in mind that stories should run between 500-750 words and must include a title; also make sure you let us know whether you want to remain anonymous or not. If you have any questions, email us!